The story line for the latest installment in the Seton Hall-Rutgers rivalry was fairly simple stuff:

Too much Jeremy Hazell, not enough Mike Rosario and some hard-nosed competitive basketball.

In the end -- and that's what this 54th meeting between the schools came down to, the very end -- Hazell proved to be the difference.

The sophomore matched his career-high with 35 points, taking over with 28 in the second half, as the Pirates held on for a gritty 70-67 victory over Rutgers Thursday night at the Prudential Center, handing the reeling Scarlet Knights their ninth straight defeat.

But for a while, Seton Hall head coach Bobby Gonzalez had a flashback to the last meeting between the schools, when Rutgers ended a nine-game losing streak in their season finale last March by beating Seton Hall on a 3-pointer by JR Inman as time expired at the Rock.

The Knights (9-12 overall, 0-8 Big East) had a chance to come close to duplicating that, but failed to get off the potential game-tying 3-pointer after getting possession with 5.2 seconds to play.

"Basically, (I had) the vision of last year, with (Rutgers guard Anthony) Farmer getting inside of us, throwing it to Inman and Inman whipping up an off-balance 3," Gonzalez said. "This time, obviously we didn't have any timeouts left so we couldn't talk about it, we said 'make them use clock, stay in front, keep the ball in front of you and don't let anyone get a clear, open look at (the basket), and make sure we don't foul a jump-shooter.' And I think that's basically what we did in the end."

It was enough to give Seton Hall its second straight Big East victory, with the Pirates (11-9 overall, 2-6 Big East) now looking to pad that with three straight games against the league's bottom feeders. St. John's, Rutgers (again) and DePaul, a combined 2-22 in Big East play, are Seton Hall's next three opponents.

Rutgers, meanwhile, is looking for one sustained stretch of good basketball without the key lapses that have led the Knights to where they are.

They wasted a gutsy 25-point effort from Rosario, their star freshman guard, and a solid second half from his classmate, forward Greg Echenique. The latter had all 13 points and seven of his eight rebounds in the second half -- though the Knights actually held a 27-26 halftime lead.

That's when they held Hazell in check.

He wouldn't stay in check, adding 10 rebounds for his first career double-double.

"It's kind of the same old story for us," Rutgers coach Fred Hill said. "We dig ourselves a hole and then climb out of it."

Ignited by Hazell, the Pirates opened the second half with an 11-4 run, eventually building a 10-point lead. Rutgers kept battling back, staying within arm's length down the stretch.

Rosario missed a 3-pointer with 1:55 to play that could have cut Seton Hall's advantage to a point, and Hazell always seemed to have an answer, either by creating or getting to the foul line, where he was 12-of-13.

"It was a close game. I knew it was going to come down to a free-throw game," Hazell said. "I knew I was going to make a lot of free throws. So that's why I wanted the ball in my hands at the end of the game."

Gonzalez said he told Hazell and Robert Mitchell at halftime that they had to be more assertive -- especially with point guard Eugene Harvey fighting through a bout of strep throat that had limited him in practice this week.

Rutgers still had one last chance after forcing turnover by Mitchell on the inbounds play with 8.6 seconds left and trailing by three. Farmer brought the ball up, but never got to run the play after bobbling the ball -- nor did he get a clean pass to Rosario, who heard the buzzer sound before he could attempt a shot.

"If I had chance to knock it down I was going to take the last shot," Rosario said.

The margin marked the 16th time in the past 28 meetings that the game between the two has been decided by six points or less.